rebelling against low expectations
Dear Independent One, I get you. I understand you. I’m like you. I tend to want to be in control, and I like to do things on my own. I don’t enjoy asking for help and I don’t easily admit it when I’m struggling. Sound familiar? There’s nothing inherently wrong with an independent personality; God gave us each different personality traits for different reasons. The problem...
On April 24th it dawned on me—I was already halfway through my 25th year. Time slips by all too lightning fast. I felt the ache of wishing my life were different, the pressure to “catch up” with cultural expectations of where everyone my age should typically be. Where was I really? No boyfriend or husband. No college degree. No babies. Yet, I have traces of those things. I’m currently using a...
I follow my dreams. In fact, you do too. Each day, we form new dreams, develop old ones, and hold them up high as our ultimate destination. I have dreamed of becoming many things—a missionary, a doctor, a mom, a wife, a writer, a singer, and a princess, among other things. Although my dreams have changed with time and age, I have held on tightly to each one, often unwilling to let them go. I’ve...
“Can You really use this for good, Lord?” It was a question I asked God time and time again as I walked the dark, lonely road of depression in 2020. I knew He promised He was able to use everything for His purposes (Rom. 8:28), but I couldn’t fathom how He could take the bleak, hopeless days of brain fog and overwhelming fear and turn them into something good. I just wanted to escape the...
What am I going to do with my life? No doubt you’ve asked yourself this question many times over. I, myself, am graduating in June, and I have yet to form a solid plan about my post-highschool life. Until recently, this concerned me greatly. Maybe you’re like me and notice a lot of your peers have already applied to colleges and have been accepted. And seeing things like this, maybe it’s adding...
Journal Entry: November 22nd, 2021. Today is my birthday. It’s been two years since my dad lost his job. Two years since my world turned upside-down and my family began the desperate search for a place to live and had no income but EI and the kindness of friends. Two years since that lost seventeen-year-old girl was stripped of every sense of security because a church chose not to act like the...
At six years old I sat at my windowsill, gazed out upon my quiet little neighborhood, and whispered the prayer, “God…please send me to Africa.” Here I am, nine years later, sitting at my desk, writing this out as an overseas missionary in West Africa. Goodness, our God works wonders, doesn’t He? But it wasn’t until I became an overseas missionary that I realized the value of not being one. If...
All throughout the Bible, God appointed and chose people that were lowly in the eyes of the world to accomplish His will. One such example is Mary. Mary was just a normal girl, living in the city of Nazareth and betrothed to Joseph. Her age isn’t known, but it’s assumed that she was a teenager. I’m sure Mary had her own plans and expectations for how her life would go, until an angel appeared to...
As I climb up the last steps of childhood, pushing through the final blocks of high school final exams, I have often found myself asking the question, “What am I going to do now?” The journey so far has been like trekking up a hill where the horizon on the other side is endless with opportunities and new things to discover. I’m now at the point in my life where I get to stand back and...
rebelling against low expectations
